Sasse: Mueller Put Moscow on Notice With Indictment

Special counsel Robert Mueller "put Moscow on notice" with his team’s indictment of 13 Russians working in concert with a St. Petersburg-based troll farm to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, Sen. Ben Sasse said Friday.

In a statement, the Nebraska Republican said the indictment should also be a "wakeup call" to Washington, The Hillreported.

"Mueller just put Moscow on notice," Sasse’s statement read, The Hill reported. "This ought to be a wakeup call to Washington: Putin’s shadow war is aimed at undermining Americans' trust in our institutions. We know Russia is coming back in 2018 and 2020 – we have to take this threat seriously."

The charges against 13 Russians and three Russian companies Thirteen Russians and three Russian companies for meddling in the election echoes a similar assessment by the U.S. intelligence community of Moscow’s influence.

The intent of the meddling, the indictment says, was to "sow discord in the U.S. political system" — and in the case of the presidential election, included efforts to support the campaign of President Donald Trump and disparage that of Hillary Clinton.

Sasse, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told NPR in May that Russian tampering in elections this year and in 2020 "keeps me up at night."

"We know what the Russians are trying to do. We know that the technology around info-ops is getting better and better," he said in the interview.

Special counsel Robert Mueller "put Moscow on notice" with his team’s indictment of 13 Russians working in concert with a St. Petersburg-based troll farm to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, Sen. Ben Sasse said Friday.